"Baby," she said; "baby, wake up!" She put her hand on the body, and withdrew it quickly. He felt so strangely unlike life and tender babyhood. An evil dread took hold on her. She strove some moments, battling with new suspicions and vague fears. "Poor little baby! poor little baby!" she whispered, tiptoed up, and kissed his cheek. Violently she started back. Who that ever, as a child, has felt that first chill contact with the mysterious enemy--who does not remember the formless horror it conjures up in the unprepared young mind? This, then, was death. She walked backward to the door, staring at the dead face, feeling that cold touch on her lips spread like a frost through her body. She must go quickly and get into her mother's lap. With her hand on the door, "Poor! poor!" she repeated with a sob, still looking back at the face. "You can't come and get warm in mother's lap any more; _you've_ got to go to heaven." Had they any idea how cold the baby was? Should she go and get his quilted travelling-coat? Was it any use? A faint dawning of the hopelessness of any earthly service to the dead made her resolution waver, and, with that, a horrible weight descended on her heart. She drew a hard breath, ran back to the table, and knelt down before it with folded hands and trembling lips. "Forgive me, baby," she whispered, "'bout the yellow ball. If I'd known this I wouldn't have taken it away." She scrambled to her feet and ran out as fast as she could, leaving the door ajar. She was going up to bed that same evening, full of excitement and speculation, when her father called to Nanna over the banisters to come and help to find the smelling-salts--her mistress had fainted. "Go to your room; I'll come presently," said the woman; and they shut her mother's door. They hadn't let her go in since morning. Her mother was ill, they said, but that was a pretence; she was always ill. The reason Val was shut out to-day was because her grandmother had arrived that morning, and her grandmother was her enemy. She was in there now. On every-day occasions Val would have contested the matter; but, grandmothers apart, there was a great deal to think about and consider just now. She sat down on the stairs. She had seen her father crying that day, and the very foundations of all stabilities seemed tottering. Men could cry, it seemed--cry like little children. It was very strange; she had supposed it a thing to be outgrown. For her own part, she had nearly overcome the childish habit. The baby, of course, had cried a great deal; but one's _father_! Somebody was coming up-stairs behind the servant--a strange man. What was he carrying? Something big, and as shiny as the new musical-box. She hugged the banisters as the two passed. "What's that?" she said to Matilda.